India's free UPI payments have revolutionized digital transactions but left fintechs struggling to turn profit. Now Flipkart's Super.money is betting big on a partnership with Kotak Mahindra Bank to issue 2 million secured credit cards over 12 months, creating a new template for monetizing zero-fee payment systems through bundled financial services.
Flipkart's fintech arm just cracked the code on making money from India's free payment revolution. Super.money's new partnership with Kotak Mahindra Bank targets 2 million secured credit card customers over the next year, with 60% going to first-time borrowers who can't access traditional credit. The collaboration represents a major shift in how Indian fintechs approach the UPI monetization challenge.
Super.money CEO Prakash Sikaria tells a different story than most payment companies. While competitors chase transaction volume, his platform deliberately targets India's top 30 million users rather than the hundreds of millions served by Google Pay or PhonePe. The strategy's working - Super.money now processes over 200 million UPI transactions monthly and ranks among India's top five payment platforms after launching just 16 months ago.
The numbers reveal why Kotak Mahindra Bank, India's fourth-largest lender by market cap, sees opportunity here. Super.money already generates $3 million in monthly revenue with an annualized run rate of $36 million. Around 80% comes from personal loans, 10% from credit cards, and 10% from payment services. The fintech maintains an 85% user retention rate, with 60-70% of transactions from customers under 30.
'We do UPI not to solve the pure payment use case,' Sikaria explained in an interview. 'We do UPI to build an interesting cross-financial services play where we are acquiring and retaining customers with the UPI.' That philosophy drives the Kotak partnership, which introduces what they call a '3-in-1 Super Account' combining savings, UPI payments, and secured credit.
India's Unified Payments Interface processes over 19 billion transactions monthly, but its government-backed zero-fee structure leaves little room for traditional fintech monetization. Regulators explicitly ban the merchant fees that typically fund rewards and credit programs in other markets. Super.money's secured card approach works around these constraints by using fixed deposits as collateral - starting with just ₹1,000 (about $11) minimum deposits.
The partnership builds on Super.money's earlier success with Utkarsh Small Finance Bank for secured cards, marking Flipkart's broader fintech ambitions after spinning off PhonePe in 2023. Walmart-owned Flipkart has invested roughly $50 million in Super.money so far, with plans for additional capital raises as the business scales toward its 2026 profitability target.
